


Keeping Time

by neverwhyonlywho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:50:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwhyonlywho/pseuds/neverwhyonlywho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you get the man who has everywhere and everywhen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Time

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas fic for gallifreysuns. Hope you enjoy, dear!

It wasn't that unusual for Rose to shuffle into the console room in her jimjams. More often than not, she'd come in with a big stretch and a big yawn and a kiss to greet the Doctor, ask about the day's itinerary, receive an _exuberant_ lecture about the virtues of wherever they were going, and then she'd wander off to dress and make breakfast.

It was a good life, with her as first mate. He got to show her the universe and she loved every moment of it. Rose gave his life structure and purpose, provided the little extra thread to tie together the endless world-saving and rabble-rousing. Sure, he did good—they did good together—and it meant something to so many peoples all over the universe. But doing all that with her meant something to _him_. It was _right_.

She was also brilliant. And wonderful. And captivating! Molto bene.

Once in a while, she was also full of surprises.

Like candy-cane striped toe socks.

"You know," he told her, staring at the red knitted nubs of her toes. "There are birds on the planet Foledura that would find your feet irresistible. Their mating displays are...bit odd, you might say, in that the best mates go to the females that look most like barber poles, but the end result is that the breeding season—"

"Down, boy." She pinched his elbow harmlessly. "These are special occasion socks, but not _that_ special. I've got somethin' to show you. D'you have a mo'?"

"For you? All the time in the world, Rose Tyler. Lead on."

And oh, that _smile_. He'd stop time itself for that silly human if she'd keep on looking at him just like that.

***

"I did say 'lead,' Rose," He reminded her, trying to sound censorious but failing. "I specifically remember not saying 'drag!'"

But really, there was no harm in it. And she was skidding around corners on her socks and glancing back at him with such untempered enthusiasm, it was infectious. He couldn't help grinning too.

"What have you got that's so important we have to risk our necks over?"

"You'll see, Doctor!" She squeezed his hand and turned a sharp right that would have smacked him right into the wall if he hadn't been paying attention. "I can't believe how long I had to wait for you to go to sleep so I could do this in private. More than a week! I thought we'd miss it entirely, you big alien git."

"In private? Er, what kind of surprise is this, Rose?"

“What do you think? The kind that you’re not supposed to know about beforehand!” She didn’t look back, but he could practically _hear_ her rolling her eyes.

A few twists and turns later, they came to an impressive set of wooden double doors, ornately crafted and huge—and perfectly flush with the normal metal paneling of the TARDIS.

The Doctor blinked. "This is new. Rose, why is there a new room in my TARDIS?"

"New? Doubt that," Rose frowned at him. "Maybe just repurposed? Well anyway, go on! No sense in standing out here when all the good stuff's inside."

Slowly, the Doctor opened the heavy doors, and he was met with a surfeit of light.

The first thing he noticed was the fire, crackling happily away in a cozy stone fireplace. He only distantly wondered how she had managed to get one of those onto a time machine. The floors were a rich dark hardwood, the rugs festive. A pair of loveseats facing the fire invited good company and definitely suggested cuddling. It all looked like something out of a photograph.

And then there was the gentle cheer of Christmas lights, wound in evergreen garlands and draped high along the bookshelves bordering the room. She’d done something to the ceiling, too; it looked transparent, giving them a bright canopy of stars above but still dimming the room’s lighting to a soft, intimate glow.

 

Hanging above the mantle? Stockings.

There were Christmas stockings in his TARDIS.

They were _glorious_.

 

“Oh! _Oh._ Rose. You are—what—this is—this is brilliant! _Rose!_ How did you—” Evidently, articulate wasn’t the kind of response she was looking for; the more he babbled, the bigger her smile got.

And then she gestured off to the side, out of his field of vision, and only once he turned did he see the impressively large Christmas tree, all lights and baubles and—was that a _TARDIS_ tree-topper?

"Oh, of course there's a tree, too!" He stopped and actually thought it through, though, shaking his head in genuine wonderment. “I won’t ask about the floors or the fireplace or those _doors_ , but honestly, Rose, I have to know. How did you get the _tree_ in here? That thing must be six or seven meters!”

“I had a little help.” She shrugged nonchalantly, buffing her nails.

“What, with a crew of lumberjacks? I was only asleep for…what, an hour, maybe two?” The Doctor laughed, folding his arms. “Rose Tyler, I can’t leave you alone at all!”

“No, you can’t.” It seemed more a command than an admission. “Still, I’m glad you did. And there were no lumberjacks involved. Scout’s honor. I just had the TARDIS do it—she did more than I thought!”

“Wait. Wait, _what._ ”

“What?”

“You had the TARDIS do… _what_. _How?_ ”

Rose shrugged again, her smile only a little self-satisfied. “I asked.”

“You can’t talk with the TARDIS! Even I can’t do that. It’s all button-pushing and knob-twirling and sure, I give her a pat or a stroke now and again, but she’s not constructed for actual dialogue!”

She lifted one eyebrow at him in wry question. “Looked into her matrix recently?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, raised a finger to make his point, but ultimately thought better of it.

“Well. Fair point. But that’s…this is…” He took a deep breath, blinked in astonishment. "This is a lot. This is _so_ much. It's _wonderful_. Thank you. But all this _work_ you've done—wouldn't you have liked it better just to go to your mum's like last year? Wouldn't it have been easier?"

"Easier? Maybe," Rose shrugged. "But...I dunno, I don't necessarily think 'easy' is the point." She picked up a small red booklet from the end table behind her. She flipped through it instead of meeting his eyes, looking almost embarrassed.

“I know you can go visit anywhere you like during Christmas. That you can have Christmas anytime you want because you've got a time machine and you’re just that good. But that still means you’re just…kind of a tourist, you know? It’s not something you can take with you. And…on Earth, it's different. It stays with you. The lights, the carol singers, even those Christmas songs you get sick of after a week, they get in your blood. And it's just...it's Christmas, whether you like it or not." She came to the page she was looking for, turned the booklet around and handed it to him.

It was a calendar, of a sort—a day planner, marked up in several different colors, with shorthand notes about their recent excursions in Rose's lively hand. Little bubbles to dot her 'i's and everything. That was so her, he thought—so very Rose, and he loved it. The notes had been sorted by day, probably lined up using the date on her cell phone. Keeping in mind the timey-wimeyness of most of their comings and goings, he imagined that had taken a fair amount of work and even more careful attention.

He glanced up at her in surprise, only to find her chewing her lip and—was that blushing? "On Earth, it's December the nineteenth. I've been keeping track. So we've got about a week until we go spend the holiday with my mum, and I just, I thought—I thought you might...I don't know, you might enjoy having all of space and time and having some genuine holiday spirit on top of it. Something that's not just borrowed from other worlds, or visited and then let go, but...something that belongs to you."

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again, saying nothing. It wasn't often his unstoppable gob ran out of things to gob on about, but he genuinely had nothing. 'Thank you' seemed far too little.

Rose seemed to notice his predicament, and bumped her shoulder against his own with a smile. "I just thought to m'self, what do you get the bloke who has everything, everywhere, and everywhen?"

He folded the day planner without a sound and slid it gently into his coat pocket. Hands free, he cupped her face, kissed her forehead, featherlight. There was no other appropriate response. She was human, all right. So human. So…limited, mortal. But she was all heart, nonetheless, and that made her a beautiful thing.

Rose was smiling her little secret smile, turning her head to kiss one of his palms. "I came up with two things, Doctor."

"Did you." He pressed his forehead against hers, stroked her hair back behind her ear, gently rubbed at the back of her neck. "I knew you were brilliant, Rose Tyler, but you've really outdone yourself this time.”

“Two things, Doctor.” Rose repeated softly. “One, something constant—constant but special. And two, someone to share it with."

“Brilliant,” The Doctor repeated in turn, tapping her nose. “But still you might have just asked to spend time at your mum’s, right?”

“Maybe I wanted the time with you.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “What did you think, you big lump? You’re every bit as much my family as they are. I—” She stopped short, hesitating. “We can go to them anytime. It's just that when I'm here, on the TARDIS, with you...there's no replacing that. That all right with you?"

"Yes. Absolutely. Molto bene." He drew her in for a tight hug, loving the little sound of delight she made. "Thank you," he said, nuzzling her hair. She smelled—well, he didn't have a word exactly for what she smelled like, but it was warm and sweet and welcoming. Everything about Rose was so welcoming; it was just maybe his favorite thing about her. She was a part of this place, she was 'home' to him, and he dared not tell her—but she knew, the clever girl. She already knew.

"You're welcome. Now—before I go get the hot cocoa, do me a favor and take, oh...two big steps backward and shuffle to the left about six feet."

"That's...a very specific request, Rose. Your left or my left?"

"Your left. And don't argue with me." Her nose crinkled with her smile, and he doubted very much that there was really anything he could deny her, when he came right down to it. He did as she asked, glancing behind him to make sure he didn't topple backward over something, which would quite frankly be very unflattering and not at all conducive to impressing Rose Tyler.

"Good. Right there. Now, you are familiar with Christmas traditions on Earth, right Doctor?"

"Most of them, yeah." He ran through a few in his mind, but putting an alien through random paces—backwards, no less—wasn't ringing any bells. "Have you got one in mind? Singing? Eggnog? Wearing sweaters of questionable taste?"

She didn't reply; instead she only raised one finger to point above his head with a broad, serene smile. An upward glance revealed that they were not alone; a small cutting of something delightfully green with smooth oblong leaves was dangling from the ceiling above them.

"Ah!" He beamed up at the plant above his head with the joy of a scientist reunited with a particularly willing specimen. " _Viscum album_ , Rose! Native to Britain, though it's got cousins all over the world. Otherwise known as mistletoe. Did you know—"

She put a finger over his lips to silence him. "Botany lesson later." He nodded mutely. "Do you know what this is for?"

"Um. I've an idea, yeah."

Her arms slipped around his neck, and his hands found her waist with hardly a conscious thought on his part at all. She was soft, soft and so warm, and so close. Very close. Their noses were practically touching. And she was looking at him _like that_. He loved it when she looked at him _like that_.

"And...?"

"Good luck, of course!" He gave her his most charming grin, fully expecting to be thwacked for that remark, but managed to escape with only a gentle tug on his earlobe in scolding.

"Try again, Time Lord."

He drew her in close instead, wrapping his arms around her. He felt her start a bit in surprise, but it only lasted a moment before she relaxed and pressed against him, warm to his cool. "The thing is, Rose," he said, running his fingertips lightly down her spine, "are you sure this isn't good luck? Because," he continued, figuring that he could interpret her flushed cheeks and staring and not breathing as enough encouragement to continue, "I feel...very lucky. Very lucky indeed, with all this."

She swallowed heavily, a barely restrained smile playing across her mouth. "Good. You should. But there's just one more thing, Doctor."

"Hmm?"

"One very important thing I need to tell you."

"Ah?" There were a good many important things that stayed unsaid between the two of them, and in a half-second of panic, he wondered which of those she was picking from. But then she rose up on her toes with that mischievous grin, and there was nothing else to do but bend to kiss her.

"Shut up," she said, smiling against his mouth.

"For you, Rose Tyler, gladly."

And though he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring—or in what ways time would limit or bless or try them—in that moment she was there, safe and bright and beautiful in his arms, and it was more than enough.


End file.
